


the ghosts of yesterday

by questionablesidekick



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Blood, Gen, Murder, Other, implied harley quinn/poison ivy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-23 20:13:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12515640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/questionablesidekick/pseuds/questionablesidekick
Summary: Paul Dennings had been hired to demolish the Arkham Asylum. He found a ghost, instead. It'd be the last thing he would ever do.





	the ghosts of yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> major inspiration taken from the DC HOUSE OF HORRORS. don't read it. it fucking sucks.

Giggling.

 

She was giggling. From her hands to her elbows was covered in blood from her husband, and she couldn’t recall feeling this happy, this good in her entire life. She couldn’t stop giggling. 

 

“Oh, you sure did  _ gut  _ him like a stuck pig!” The voice was high-pitched. Grating. Impossible to ignore. “Bled him out like one!” The ghost tried to touch the body, but when she pulled her gloved hand back, the gloves themselves remained a pristine white. “Ten out of ten, doll!”

 

The kitchen knife clattered onto the ground. Jo raised her hands to her mouth, horrified. She dropped them a second later, and smeared a grotesque smile onto her pretty face. The harlequin ghost disappeared and reappeared behind her, leaning up against her so their bodies were melded. “You  _ know _ ,” she cooed into her ear, “I still need  _ another  _ heart.”

 

“Okay.” Jo said, staggering up to her feet and grabbing the knife. She didn’t feel like herself. “Okay.”

 

“Since we’re working together like  _ best  _ friends, you can go ahead and call me Harley. Harley Quinn!” She pressed a nonexistent kiss against Jo’s cheek, before vanishing with a laugh. Again, she reappeared by the door. “Remember how we met?”

 

_ Six Hours Ago _

 

“PAUL!” 

Paul jumped half a foot, nearly hitting a half-demolished wall. The foreman was stomping towards him, and he hastily put on his helmet. “I need you to go over something again, since Charles left before I could yell at him.” 

 

“My shifts just about over!” Paul protested, before the foreman gave him a nasty look. 

 

“So? I got twenty other people  _ desperate  _ for your job. Go recheck Charles’s floor, the idiot missed an entire room.” He shoved the clipboard at Paul, who barely managed to hold onto it as the foreman yanked his arm back. “Now!’

 

Paul took off towards the stairs to the basement level. 

It didn’t take long for the singing to start. 

 

“ _ One lonely Pammy, stuck in the dirt. Waiting for her Harley to raise her. All it would take is just one lonely skirt. Only takes a Harley for the lines to blur! You can’t ever subvert the Harley Quinn!”  _ The singing cut off as Paul set foot onto the landing, and he met the woman’s eyes. 

 

“You can’t be down here,” Paul said. The woman herself was dressed oddly, with a black and red checkered bodysuit with a weird hood, and her face as pale as death. “Hey! I said you gotta leave!”

 

The woman tilted her head. The bells on her hood tinkled. Slowly, she smiled. “Oh,  _ Paulie _ ,” she said, “We’re about to get  _ intimate. _ ”

 

Paul screamed as her hands touched his heart.

 

_ Now _

 

“That was your husband silly!” Harley said. Jo found herself sitting on the armchair. It was slowly and surely being stained a rusty red. “But it’s a bit confusing now, isn’t it? What’s yours? What’s his? What’s  _ mine _ ?” Harley’s hands went through her shoulders and the ghostly chill of them made her freeze. “Did you murder your husband and ever his heart? Or was that me, sweetie?”

 

“I don’t know.” Jo whispered. The more she thought about it, the more the memories blurred. Was it Harley’s white gloved hands stained with the bright red of Paul’s blood? Or was it her that got it stuck in her fingernails? 

 

“Paul was the only man to ever see me you know. Had a  _ littttle  _ crazy in him. Hadda, in order to see me. It was fate, it was kismet, who knows! But you, dear little Jo, are special! You killed for me!” Harley poked Jo’s unresponsive cheek. “I have two hearts, and one more and I can see my darling Pammy-wammy!”

 

_ Who had killed Paul? _ Jo wondered, she didn’t hear what Harley was saying. What had Harley made her do? What had she  _ done! _ __   
  


_ Five hours ago _

 

The foreman had left before Paul had come back the rickety stairs. The song Harley had sung kept repeating, over and over, and he found himself singing along. 

 

“ _ One lonely Pammy, stuck in the dirt. Waiting for her Harley to raise her. All it would take is just one lonely skirt. Only takes a Harley for the lines to blur! You can’t ever subvert the Harley Quinn!”  _

 

He giggled. He slammed open the door into the parking lot. Charles was coming back, fiddling with the keys to the Asylum. “Oh. Paul! Hey man, I was coming back to recheck my floor- you don’t look so good.”

 

Paul snickered. “I’m in the bestest shape of my life! You’re the one that doesn’t look so hot!” Charles took a step forward, one concerned hand reaching out, and Paul snapped it without hesitation. “Oh, you’ll be  _ useless _ , but practice makes permanent ya know!’”

 

Charles started to scream. 

 

_ Five hours ago _

 

Jo was in the living room, waiting for her husband. He was running late, which she’d expected, but as the hours ticked by, her irritation was slowly replaced by concern. Paul was never more than an hour late, maybe she should phone him…

 

There was a scrape of keys in the door. It creaked open, a reminder that Paul had yet to oil it. 

 

The man that stepped inside the house was not Paul. 

 

“Hi honey!” He shrieked, “I’m home!”

 

Something flickered. “You’re perfect!” A woman said, and there was a gasp as cold hands grasped her heart and Jo did not remember grabbing the knife.

 

_ Now _

 

“You said I was perfect.” Jo said finally. Harley nodded overenthusically. 

“You are, honey!” Harley moved away. “ _ Sooo  _ perfect. I just need you do one  _ more  _ thing for me. Can you do it? For me?”

 

Jo nodded. She could. She could do it for Harley. 

Harley giggled. “Give a clown a kiss? Pucker up!”

 

_ mWAH! _

 

Jo stood up. Her eyes were changing from a dull blue to an eye-searing green. She stepped over her husband's outstretched arm, and knelt again in the blood. She dipped her hand in it, and painted a grostesque smile onto her face. 

She stood, and went to the door. Unlocked and opened it, and went down the steps to the parking garage. She was so, so cold. Jo unlocked her car, slid in. She didn’t turn on the heater.

 

Jo drove for hours.

 

She started to sing. Her voice got hoarse, and then it gave.

 

“ _ One lonely Pammy, stuck in the dirt. Waiting for her Harley to raise her. All it would take is just one lonely skirt. Only takes a Harley for the lines to blur! You can’t ever subvert the Harley Quinn!” _

 

She stopped at a park, old and abandoned and overgrown. She touched the rusty metal pole, and stepped inside. She tracked blood from her shoes.

 

Jo  _ gasped _ .

 

Harley stepped out. “Oh, Robinson Park! So many memories! So many burials!” She bounced into the forest. Jo did not want to follow, but she found herself in the heart of the woods anyway.

 

There was dust next to Paul’s heart.  _ How had it gotten there? _

 

The forest seemed sinister. 

 

“Take a step forward,” Harley encouraged. Jo did. Then she took another.

 

A vine shot through the dirt, and Jo screamed as it struck her dead. 

 

A hand shot through the dirt, a bright  _ vivid _ green.

 

“Pammy!”

 

“Oh  _ Harley _ .” 

 

The forest creeped outwards as the two women embraced. On the edges of it, someone  _ screamed _ .


End file.
